Midwest Fertilizer selects site for its Indiana nitrogen plant

HOUSTON (ICIS)--Midwest Fertilizer has selected the site for its planned $2.1bn (€1.6bn) nitrogen plant in Indiana, company officials said on Thursday.

The location is southwest of Mount Vernon, which is currently being used for agricultural production. Midwest officials said the company is now seeking zoning approval from Posey County officials.

Previously the Posey County Partnership gave its support to the project by agreeing to issue bonds to fund the project and has offered the company a tax incentive package.

Midwest has a 48% ownership stake from the Fatima Group, which is a fertilizer manufacturer based in Lahore, Pakistan. The rest of the ownership is a consortium of international investors.

Construction is expected to start in the spring of 2014 with the plant set to produce ammonium nitrate using natural gas as feedstock. No details on capacity or production timeline have been released, but officials have said the facility is anticipated to take three years to construct and eventually cost approximately $1.8bn.

The project has faced some controversy due to the fact that the Fatima Group has been linked with fertilizer products which have been used in improvised explosive devices that have killed American soldiers in Afghanistan. In January the state of Indiana withdrew its incentives for the project over those concerns.

In response to the criticism over the use of its product to make homemade bombs, the company earlier this year said the fertilizer had been reformulated to make it less likely to detonate.